Life has been…

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Crazy? Stressful? Awkward? Daft? Over and under booked? Yeah. All of those.

Meetings. Hello, my name is Jaye, and I have a serious case of S.T.P. Syndrome. (Same Ten/Twenty/Thirty People at a meeting.) It comes of living in a small rural community, where there just aren’t enough people around to fill out all the various positions at a meeting. I’ve had board meetings, committee meetings, Maker group meetings, SCA meetings, festival meetings, etc. I’m still the school board president, and Celtic Music Festival chair. I’ve tried to resign as secretary from the district accountability group. (DAAC) I’ve cheered when some of them have been canceled. And… I’ve had to set up a few. sigh… I think I need Meetings Anonymous… (oh wait… that’s another meeting!)

Cars. A couple of weeks ago, my parent’s Subaru started acting up. A mysterious oil leak. Turned out that the engine had a fault, that all Subaru’s of that era and engine type develop. We took it to our favourite mechanic who suggested we take it to a place in Pueblo. After an hour, that place got back to us. Their recommendation… Junk it. The cost of the repair was prohibitive, and no guarantee that it would stay fixed. The result is that we have a new to us Subaru. It’s a 2000 Forester. Runs well, and Dan has been making the minor repairs it needed.

new car

Work has been crazy. Line up a job, have it canceled. Think we have a free day, job pops up. The inconsistent income is driving me crazy. However, it has had an upside. We were able to move 99% of our stuff out of storage and into the garage. Granted, that doesn’t mean I’m any more organized. We tried to find some of the stuff we needed like clothing, some dishes, etc. Found about 45% of what we were looking for. Oh well… At least I got my desk! I have missed it!

mydesk

Meanwhile, the last of the garden was harvested. Onions and leeks. 🙂 We still have kale outside, but at the moment it lives under a plastic box. I’m using them up as fast as I can. There isn’t any more room in the freezers for a shred more of food.

Leeks and onions

I also turned 56 on November 9th. It was an alright birthday. I had lots of stuff to do, so I didn’t get to indulge myself in snuggling in a chair with a good book and being waited on hand and foot by Dan. sigh… There is always next year. I did get some nice prezzies though. A tool box, and a coloring book. 🙂

While I don’t expect things to calm down or mellow out any time soon, at least I have things to occupy my time!

Last but not least, it snowed!

Okay, it’s been like FOREVER since I last posted.

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It’s been busy. Never Ever let anyone tell you that taking care of your elderly parents is easier than babies. Nope. Not even gonna believe that. It’s been three months of adjustment and reorganizing. Between shopping, drives, housecleaning and just everyday things, my life has been HECTIC.

Plus, it’s been busy. Usually our lives slow down around the end of the Celtic Music Festival. Not this year! Our one client in Denver moved, and we’ve been doing a lot of work getting their new home tech ready. On top of that, having new admin in the school district has been interesting. We’ve gotten more done in the last few months than we have in the last few years. Oh, and Morgan goes off to College in January.

So, now for some highlights.

Sunday Drives. In trying to meld my parent’s schedule in with ours means that we try to take Sunday drives. We saw some brilliant aspen in October. November and December brought sunny but cold days with snow. We also try and have breakfast at this little diner in Trinidad, called Bob and Earl’s. It’s the kind of place you walk into and everyone knows each other. Good food too.

Along with this is the Wednesday shopping in Pueblo which has been fun and yet eaten my life!

The Spanish Peaks Community Foundation Gala.  A night to dress up and honor people in the community. It was a very nice evening and lovely to dress up!

Skunked! We were woken up out of a dead sleep around 3am. Our dog Brandy got skunked on the front porch of the Wendy House. We had to open all the doors and windows, and I sat up until nearly 6am, trying to breathe. Ugh…

So, instead of working on some of our various projects, we will be washing Brandy and her area along with bedding, curtains, etc. I hate skunks.

Halloween. Dan and I handed out candy on my parent’s front porch. We must have seen over 300 kids. It was a lot of fun, and the weather was so nice!

Outlander Yes, I’m a fan. The series was fantastic. And… All the costume work. So much of it that a group formed on Facebook with all sorts of knitting, sewing, crocheting, etc. I have knitted two shawls and a cowl. 🙂 One man put out a survivor’s guide.

School stuff Our new superintendent is great. We’ve worked out a lot of the issues that the district has had problems with in the last 6 months. We have a lot of new staff as well, and it seems to be going well. Plus, we took a big chance. We bought iPads for every student in the district. It’s been interesting. We’ve also started a clothing bank. Too many kids without coats or basics. We are running out of a class room. 🙂 I went to the CASB Winter Conference at the beginning of December as well. It was a really good conference. Lots of info, ideas and connections.

We’ve had a Veteran’s Day celebration which honored Vets from our community, and local nursing home, and some creative literary nights. Night at the Museum was a lot of fun. The One Room Schoolhouse was great too. We also had a holiday dinner at La Plaza. More dressing up. 🙂

Weather November had some bitter cold and snow. Brrr! December has had it’s surprises as well. We are having a white Christmas as there was about 6 inches of snow on the 22nd. Oh, and it’s going to snow on Boxing Day as well. (26th) Lots of deer in the yard too, eating everything.

The Wendy House. We painted! We trimmed! We built another raised bed and oh have we gathered, chopped, split and burned firewood! We got permission to trim up two dead trees and were given two loads of wood. Wow. Morgan teased us that we love Halloween so much that we live in a pumpkin. Oh, and we got a bathtub and on demand water heater for the bathroom! 

Family. My Great Uncle Richard Ridge passed away on Halloween. He was 91. My Great Aunt Ann Sudar had her 100th birthday on December 13th. That was a wonderful party with 75 friends and family present. I got to see a lot of Sudars I hadn’t seen in years.

The Great Experiment Dan and I have been looking into hydroponics and aquaponics. So, we tried a small inside experiment. There will be more on that on this blog. We learned some lessons and will be trying it again in the spring.

Thanksgiving. My sister and her family, my aunt and her family, my parents and my family all got together for Thanksgiving dinner. Eleven people for three days. Wow! It was really nice.

And now for some pictures. 🙂

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Bits and Bobs

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At least that’s what it feels like we’ve accomplished since we came home from Battlemoor. Lots of little jobs. Clean this area, cook dinners, work on the gardens or the Wendy House. One big improvement was storage. We ‘floored’ the loft over the kitchen and rearranged the storage. No more tubbies on the ground. Plus, we added coat hooks, hooks for the iron, etc. It makes life just a little more livable. I even had a Western Scrub Jay come check out RedTom’s food dish.

Some of the time has been spent with Morgan. Her 18th birthday was on the 10th. Wow has time passed. I made green chile and a carob mayonnaise cake. The recipe uses may instead of oil and eggs. Our friend Mark and his daughter Catherine came over for dinner and cake. It was a good evening. Thursday night we went to their house. Friday was chaos.  It was Cold! I think we got to 41F! Fire in the wood stove and heavier clothes than I’ve worn in months. Brrrr!

Inside there was packing, laundry and trash. Morgan was getting ready to move out. Dan took her to do laundry and a few errands. Morgan left for Fowler, a room mate and a job on Friday night.

Yesterday, Dan worked on organizing his office (an ongoing project) and concealing the network wiring. We no longer look like we live in an IT closet!

While he did that, I cleaned Morgan’s room, moved sewing storage tubbies in and made the last loaf of Artisan’s bread. This is the first time I’ve tried it. Very nice. I’ll be playing with the recipe over the next few months.

Then it was time to tackle the Wendy House. Threw all the scatter rugs outside, and emptied the bathroom and Brandy’s area. Swept, mopped, dusted, etc. I wiped down everything in the bathroom as I replaced and reorganized it. I hosed down the rugs and Brandy’s bedding. Most of them were too doggied to throw in a washer. While I was doing that, I got bit by red ants. Ugh… It burns! It swells! It makes me feel horrid! I slathered on Benadryl and kept going. Vacuumed the bedroom and swept the main living area. It was so nice for it to be clean.

Plus, while we were waiting for things to dry, I had a thought. Brandy would be warmer if her bed wasn’t on the floor. While trying to engineer this in my head, I was cruising Off Grid Quest, a website I visit. I came across one of the pallet stories and *POOF*! An idea was born. Dan went down to our local feed store which gives away pallets, and grabbed a load. A bit of circular saw work and Brandy had a bed platform. She was a bit uncertain at first, but it looks pretty good. We might fancy it up a bit, but for now, it works. We also have pallets for future projects and/or firewood.

Today is going to be low-key. I still feel like dreck from the ant bites and all the dust I ejected from the Wendy House. Dan mowed my parents yard and is finishing up the last of the office work. I’m going to make another batch of artisan’s bread and dinner with all of the veggies from the garden.

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A Snowy Tuesday

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It’s been a while since I felt like writing. On January 18th, after some of the most bitter temperatures in a while, I headed to Cheyenne. It had been 39 Very Long Days since I’d seen Dan. I swear that the travel fairies were with me as I literally flew up I-25. It is usually a 4.5 hour trip and I made it in just under 4 hours. 🙂 It was so good to be together again.

We had a computer client in Denver on Saturday. When we got back, we packed up all of Dan’s stuff and came home on Sunday afternoon. He will continue to look for work, but that will be done from here, instead of Cheyenne. Neither one of us liked being apart.

This last week has been hectic. Meetings, rearranging the house once more to accommodate the offices to the front porch where it is warm, and dinner with my parents. In that Dan missed Christmas dinner, he got to pick what he wanted for dinner. We had fried chicken, mashed potatoes and green beans with bacon. Mom made oatmeal cookies with butterscotch chips for dessert.

Friday we had a Spanish Peaks International Celtic Music Festival meeting. We are planning for the 9th Festival. It looks like it will be very good.

 

On Sunday we had a birthday party with a group we are a part of called Mach30. It was fun.  Monday was interesting. Dan got an offer to build some electrical parts for a local WISP. It is exciting and should actually net us some income. We had a school district meeting as well that lasted until nearly 8pm.

Today we were suppose to go visit Morgan in La Junta. It was going to be a quick trip as I had yet another school board meeting tonight. Well, we woke up to about 4 inches of snow with more falling. Right now I think we have had about 6-7 inches. The wind has settled down, but the snow is still falling. We stayed home and I canceled the meeting. My parents didn’t go to Pueblo either. They got about 25 miles up the road and turned back. About 30 minutes ago I took some pictures. We are snugged up in the Guest house keeping warm by the woodstove. 🙂

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Supersonic September

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This month has rushed by. We started with Battlemoor and will end with the Spanish Peaks Celtic Music Festival In between, we have had birthdays a plenty. Morgan’s, Dan’s, Mom and Dad’s. And, since we got paid, there were new glasses for Dan and Morgan, new shoes for Dan and new tires for the truck. Then it was back to the daily grind of house work, computers and cleaning.

I thought I’d get a breather in there. Wrong. Day after his birthday, Dan felt ill. By Monday night, he was in bed. I won’t share the gory details, but he was not a happy camper. Oh, and he passed out/fell at one point. One moment he was fine, next… out. So, he spent most of the next day in bed and has been making a slow recovery ever since. Why? Well, when he fell, he smacked his hip and cracked a rib. We knew about the hip right away… Can’t miss it if it hurts to sit. And yes, plenty of bad jokes were made about cracks… However, it wasn’t until he actually began to feel better, and stopped hurting everywhere, that he realized he’d cracked a rib.

Now of course, it’s the beginning of the music festival. Dan is up in Gardner today with some of the musicians at the school. Tonight is a pot luck which I need to make a cake or something for and Thursday night is The Taste of Things to Come, the first concert. It is going to be a really good festival this year.

Oh, and on top of that, we are 1) cleaning house to do the plumbing-don’t faint, 2) cleaning house because it’s time to get ready for winter, and 3) Natalie is coming to visit October 1st!!!!!  I’m sorry that she’ll be here when it is all chaotic, but we haven’t seen her in nearly 6 years. (bounce! bounce! bounce!)

After mid-October, when I think I’ll get some time to sew, we’ll see what else crops up.

Battlemoor III, Plums and too much going on

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August ran us over and we crashed in the Middle Ages. Aka… Battlemoor III. I barely got all of my sewing done in time to head out on a Wednesday to camp. Originally, Dan was not going to stay the whole time. He’d planned to work and then come out in the evenings. Serendipity swung her mighty fairy dust wand and Poof! Things changed. Dan got off of work a little late and didn’t have to go back on Thursday. He got his class work done and realized he might actually have a chance to take some time off. Not like we needed it or anything.

Wednesday as we sat up camp after sundown, we got to know a few of our fellow campers in Artisan’s Lane. Then we slept for the first time in ages with no real schedule for us in the morning. Ahhhhh!

We woke at dawn and started getting ready for the day. I worked on the potters wheels and the pottery tent. Dan started running errands. Then he discovered that there was no ice truck this year. So, he started running ice in from First Choice, our local grocery store. At least two trips a day. He gave free ice to the Troll gate, Chirgeons, the watch and to the parties.

I had a lot of fun working with the pottery and the fiber tent. It was the first time I’d thrown on a potter’s wheel in about 8 years. I didn’t do to bad, but I realize I will have to build up my hand strength for next year. I made a couple of hand built pieces as well. One was a small rose. It was about the only piece of mine that made it through the firing. We did do a kiln fire and realized that we need better air control next year. At least there was enough pottery to award some to the king and queen. 🙂

I got a lucet this year and learned how to make cord. 🙂 Dan bought me presents too. A torque, shears, a small knife, shoes, hair pins, a shuttle and the lucet. 🙂 I’ll post pictures below.

I think that camping with the Artisan’s Lane group was the best thing we did. I really enjoyed the company and the way it all worked. We all pitched in with cooking and cleaning up.

Once we got home, we were thrown into the craziness of ‘life’. I picked 50 pounds of plums off of my mom’s tree. Since then I have made plum jelly, syrup, jam, butter and chutney. Oh and cake and cobbler. Yummm!

We also have been to visit Morgan at least two times. Once on her 16th birthday. We took her out to eat, gave her a prezzie Dan picked up for her at Battlemoor III and gave her some money. She is really adjusting to college well. While she may be the youngest person on campus, she is on par with many of her fellow students mentally. For others, she is the adult supervision. LOL!

Wednesday, it rained almost all day long and oh was it COLD! I pulled blankets out of boxes and threw quilts on the bed. Today we got a clear glimpse of the Spanish Peaks. There was snow on the tops and the Trincheras were white! Brrrr!!!!

Last night we drove to Pueblo and had dinner at Bingo Burger. 🙂 It was Dan’s birthday treat to himself. We went to Barnes and Nobel for a while and then came home. Tomorrow we are heading out to pick her up, and then we are going to Pueblo. She and Dan need new glasses. Maybe, just maybe we will eat at Bingo Burger again. 🙂

Oh, and week after next is the Spanish Peaks Celtic Music Festival!

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I should have known better

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Life didn’t mellow out, slow down or get easier. Instead, it got crazy.  The school board meeting that should have happened on the 8th was canceled. We had snow and the auditors that check the election couldn’t certify the vote. You can read all about that here . I started a blog about my school board life.

The 9th was my birthday. I made dinner and a carrot cake. It was great and while we did nothing really special, it was a good day. Thursday and Friday Dan had to work sound for the local high school play. Saturday we had dinner in Trinidad with my parents. We went to Wonderful House for my ‘birthday’ dinner. Yum!

Over the weekend, I attempted to seal cracks in the Wendy House. The wind was brutal and my parents called us on Sunday to tell us how they’d driven up HWY 12 and came across the wind damage at Stonewall. We were lucky here in Walsenburg. A few limbs down and that was about it.

Monday… Bryan and Katie have been having issues. Not exactly fighting, but issues. They decided to talk, but didn’t set a time. Katie kept pestering Bryan when he was either just waking up, going to sleep, heading to work, etc… Not a good time to talk. So, he said ‘let’s talk on the weekend’ (ie Nov 19th) She said okay. He went to work. Tuesday morning around 6:45am, Bryan knocks on our door. Katie and the kids are gone. The house was trashed and she apparently packed as much as she could get in the car and left.

We were all devastated. Eventually we found that she was in Ft. Smith, OK. with her girlfriends. I have to admit I am worried about the boys. I miss my two grandsons, Talon and Gavin.

Wednesday was the make up meeting for the school district and a Accountability meeting. Dan and I are now part of the District Accountability Committee. So, Dan went to the Accountability meeting and I went to the school board. We got sworn in and then held elections for officers. I’m now the president of the school board.

Thursday morning, we had the police doing a welfare check on Katie as she hadn’t reported to work. Then that afternoon, her boss from the hospital was by. Katie never called the school, daycare or her job. She just left. The day was lightened by the fact that I had a mouse try to run up my pant leg and then later ran across the sleeping dog.

Friday we went out to Gardner School for One Room Schoolhouse. Each year they have a day where the whole school reverts to the one room school system. It was a lot of fun. Dan helped make ice cream cone cones and we both helped Pam’s class make telephones. Afterwards we went up to see Jack and Barbara Yule. Dan did some computer work and then we had a nice lunch.

As for this weekend, it has been fairly quiet. We did some work, got paid, enjoyed a good meal in Pueblo and Brandy got sprayed by a skunk. We also took a drive where we saw at least 100 deer and 60 wild turkeys. It was great.  Today I got to spend two hours visiting with a dear friend I haven’t seen in 30 years. Bill Farquhar and his wife Kristen were on their way to Denver and stopped in town long enough to eat lunch and visit. 🙂 It was so good to chat and catch up with him.

Now I’m catching up on all the blogs, emails and other things, because if things go as they have been, the next two weeks will be busy!

 

Crazy November

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Today is Samhain when dated by the cross quarter days of the calendar. New Years. Dumb suppers on the table and pictures of loved ones on the altar.

November has been hectic, starting with Election Day. I got over 1000 votes and I am now the Director of District A in Huerfano RE-1 school district. Our first board meeting is tomorrow. I’m also on the District Accountability Committee and so is Dan. LOL… I told him that I was sharing the pain. He wanted information, so I handed him the CDE D.A. C. handbook and SB 09-163  Now he is gnashing his teeth and banging his head on his desk. This of course will be interesting as he is on the Colorado Workforce Development Council, the SouthEast Workforce board and I am on the CWDC State Youth Council.

Since Election day, our shop has gotten a ton of computer jobs. There is a new virus out there and so far we’ve seen 5 in the shop with it. For the most part it requires a total wipe of the system and a re-install. Not fun. It means money in our pockets though which is good as business has been slow all year.

On top of the work, we have lots of meetings. Two today. More later in the week. It’s my birthday on Wednesday and Dan has a light show to do on Thursday and Friday. Oh, and dinner with my parents on Thursday night.

Daylights savings time ended yesterday. We spent our ‘extra hour’ catching up on all the sleep we’ve lost over the last month. ZZZZZzzzzzz!

Here’s hoping for a mellow week next week.

 

Paganism in the news

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CNN had a good article about Paganism on the Internet yesterday. It was nice to see such an even handed article. Yesterday of course was Halloween, and like many, we celebrated with our family and the rest of the little goblins in town. I dressed up for work.I had two wee Viking lads visit me and demand candy else they’d raid my basket of sweets.

Of course I gave in and deposited candy in their sacks. 🙂

Dan and I will be having a more traditional celebration on November 7th, which is the cross quarter day. This site is great for marking your calendar. This next two weeks will be busy. Election day today, Samhain, my first school board meeting, my birthday, a trip to Denver for a State Youth Council meeting and Dan has two days of work lighting the high school play. Wheeee!

Oh, and it is suppose to snow again tonight. We had our first real snow storm and we got about 14 inches. It was a wet sloppy snow, and the moisture was much appreciated.

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Anabell!

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She came to visit! Her mom and stepdad are in town visiting family and we got to visit with Anabell for about 5 hours.

We made tortillas, burritos and then I made a carob mayonnaise cake. Morgan and Anabell put mint chips and carob chips in the cake as well. It was heavenly. After dinner, we watched Tangled. Plus I gave Anabell some of my dolls. A Navajo doll, some worry dolls, and a big porcelain doll from England that has red hair. Oh, and I found a book for her. She was in heaven.

Then today, Dan sent me a picture… he was teasing me the other day about having to rip out some of my knitting, which is called tink-ing. 🙂 (knit backwards) I laughed!

Life is a bit slow at the moment. We are trying to get the house cleaned up and ready for some major construction work. That includes the Wendy House as well. Do I have the energy? Nope! Not today. I’m a slug. Hmmm….. maybe that noneuclidean sweater ate my ‘get up and go’.

Oh, and today is Erin’s 29th birthday.